The Case of the Missing Teeth

John R. Erickson

Sujets

• Humorous Stories
• horses
• Juvenilee Fiction
• Drover
• General officer
• General
• West
• Adventure
• Americana
• Panhandle
• Action
• Western
• Texas

Informations

• Publié par: MAVERICK BOOKS INC
• Date de parution: 03 novembre 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781591887768
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 4 Mo

Extrait

The Case of the Missing Teeth

John R. Erickson
Illustrations by Nicolette G. Earley
In style of Gerald L. Holmes
Maverick Books, Inc.



Publication Information
MAVERICK BOOKS
Published by Maverick Books, Inc.
P.O. Box 549, Perryton, TX 79070
Phone: [phone]
www.hankthecowdog.com
Published in the United States of America by Maverick Books, Inc., 2021

Copyright © John R. Erickson, 2021
All rights reserved
Maverick Books, Inc. Paperback ISBN: 978-1-59188-176-6
Hank the Cowdog® is a registered trademark of John R. Erickson.
Printed in the United States of America
Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.


Dedication
To James William Earley, the first-born son of our illustrator, Nikki Earley, and her husband Keith. If he doesn’t turn out to be a Hank fan, he’ll get five Chicken Marks.


Contents
Chapter One - The Mysterious Skunk Bird
Chapter Two - Drover Ate a Dead Fish
Chapter Three - A Call From Miss Viola
Chapter Four - Woodrow Is Missing
Chapter Five - We Find Woodrow’s Pickup
Chapter Six - A Hooded Executioner!
Chapter Seven - A Muddy Adventure
Chapter Eight - Tractor to the Rescue
Chapter Nine - Unbelievable
Chapter Ten - I Find Him
Chapter Eleven - The Craziest Story You Ever Heard
Chapter Twelve - Where Did the Teeth Go?


Chapter One: The Mysterious Skunk Bird


I t’s me again, Hank the Cowdog. The mystery began in June, as I recall, yes the first week of June. Daylight comes early at that time of year and it came early that morning. The first light of the sun was already peeking through the trees and it wasn’t even six o’clock yet.
At that hour of the morning, there wasn’t a single dog in Texas or anywhere else who knew about the Missing Teeth. Nobody did, not even the teeth, because they hadn’t gone missing at that point.
I probably shouldn’t have brought up the teeth because they come later in the story and you’re not supposed to know about ‘em yet. Wait. They’re in the title of the book so…never mind, skip it. If you want to tell your mom that some teeth went missing, that’s okay.
By the way, that morning sun came up in the EAST. Remember that, it might turn out to be an important clue later on. In Security Work, we never know which little facts might turn out to be important clues, so we try to remember all of them, every tiny dovetail.
Detail.
A lot of dogs hate it when the days start so early, because they have to get out of bed and go to work. They get used to the Winter Routine, don’t you know, when the sun doesn’t show its face until eight o’clock, and they get lazy.
That’s one of the biggest problems facing America today: lazy dogs. They have no ambition or get-up-and-go. All they want to do is sleep eighteen hours a day. I have one of those mutts on my staff at the Security Division: Drover. I never saw a dog who slept so much.
I should have fired him years ago but I’m soft-hearted.
Me? I love the Summer Routine when the day starts before six o’clock and the sun doesn’t go down until after nine. I’m usually wide awake at four o’clock in the morning and have to lie there for two hours until Slim drags his bones out of bed. I can’t start the ranch work until he shows up, so I have to lie there, waiting. And you know me, I hate to wait.
And so it was on this particular morning of which we which. I was wide awake at four o’clock, ready to go roaring off into another day’s work, but Slim and Drover were still pasted into their sheets. The only soul on the ranch who wasn’t asleep, besides me of course, was a mockingbird in front of the house. The moron must have gotten his days and nights mixed up, because he was out there squawking his head off…in the dark!
They’re showoffs, those mockingbirds, and think they’re hot stuff because they’ve memorized thirteen songs they stole from other birds and seem to think that everyone on the ranch wants to hear them. We don’t want to hear them. At two in the afternoon, maybe we’ll be polite and listen, even though mockingbirds tend to be loud and overbearing, but when they start their noise at four in the morning…that’s outrageous.
Someone needed to stuff a sock in that bird’s big yap, and I was just the dog for the job. For half a minute, I gave it very serious thought, but then…I might have tumbled back into the deep hole of sleep.
Yes, I did but it wasn’t entirely my fault. In fact, it wasn’t my fault at all and the blame must fall squarely on the stupid bird. See, it’s a well-known fact that the chirping and twittering of a mockingbird can have a hypnopotomizing effect on other creatures, such as dogs. At first, it disturbs our sleep and wakes us up, then it lulls us back into slumber. It’s like sleeping pills for dogs.
You know the biggest problem facing America today? It’s noisy no-manners mockingbirds that spew out songs in the middle of the night and cause normally vigilant guard dogs to fall into a stuporous state. I mean, it’s happening on ranches all across our land and nobody is doing anything about it.
Anyway, I was dragged back into sleep by the toxic chirps of an imbecile bird and the next thing I knew, a strange man was creeping down a dark hall and coming towards wherever I was.
Where was I? I blinked my soggy eyes and glanced around. The sun was showing its first light and I seemed to be, well, in some kind of room, perhaps in some kind of a house. What was going on? I had been awake for hours, and yet I felt as though I hadn’t been awake for hours.
Then…this was creepy…the man, the strange man in the room in the house in which I was whiching, said in a gruff voice, “I’m going to strangle that stinking bird!” He stomped to a device that appeared to be the front door, flung it open, stepped out on what appeared to be a porch, and yelled, “SHUT UP!”

I was in the process of doing Analysis on these events when another total stranger, this one a dog, suddenly apeppered at my side…appeared at my side, it should be, and said, “Oh my gosh, what’s going on?”
I gazed into his eyeballs and saw…well, dishwater. That was my first impression, that I was looking into a pan of dirty dishwater, so I said, “You need to change your water once in a while.”
To which he said, “Yeah, I need to go outside.”
“Good, then you can finish the dishes.”
“What dishes?”
“I don’t know what dishes. You’re the one who brought it up.”
“No, you brought it up. All I asked was what’s going on around here. I heard someone yell about a stinking bird.”
I looked closer at the face. “Who are you?”
“Drover. Remember me?”
“No. Yes. I don’t know. Are you the one who turned in the report about the Skunk Bird?”
“What’s a Skunk Bird?”
“It’s a bird that stinks. I need facts on this…what was your name again?”
“Drover.”
“Okay, let’s gather up some facts on the Skunk Bird. Were you washing dishes when you saw him?”
He rolled his eyes around. “I didn’t see him.”
“If you didn’t see him, how can you be sure he was a Skunk Bird?”
“I never said he was.”
“Roy, if a bird stinks, he must be a Skunk Bird. What other kind of bird stinks?”
He uttered a groan. “My name is Drover.”
“Please don’t groan when I’m trying to explain an investigation.”
“You called me Roy.”
“Your name has nothing to do with the investigation. Now, why were you doing dishes in the middle of the night?”
“Hank, I heard someone yelling about a stinking bird and I just wondered what was going on.”
“Wait a second. Are you on my staff?”
“Yeah, I’m Drover but I wasn’t doing dishes.”
“Okay, we’ll forget the dishes. For the last time, where did you see the Skunk Bird?”
“I’ve never heard of a Skunk Bird.”
I paced a few steps away and tried to clear my head. “Huh. Neither have I. Drover, what’s going around here? What are we doing?”
His eyes popped open. “Wait a second, I just figured it out. Slim got out of bed and yelled at a noisy bird.”
“You said it was a stinking bird.”
“Yeah, Slim said he was going to strangle that stinking bird.”
“Why wasn’t I informed? How can I run this ranch when everyone is trying to strangle Skunk Birds in the middle of the night?”
“Hank, there’s no such thing as a Skunk Bird.”
My gaze flicked around the room. “Then…why are we talking about it?”
“I don’t know and it worries me. Sometimes I wonder if we’re normal.”
That word sent a shock down my spine. “Of course we’re normal, but just in case we’re not, nobody needs to know. The less said about this, the better.”
At that moment, the strange man came back into the house—Slim Chance. He muttered, “Six o’clock in the dadgum morning and I’ve got a mockingbird that wants to sing in Carnegie Hall.”
Drover grinned. “Oh, I get it now. It was a mockingbird. We must have been asleep and Slim woke us up.”
“You might have been asleep but I’ve been awake most of the night. Furthermore, I knew it was a mockingbird and, for your information, he started screeching at four o’clock. I was on this case hours ago, so don’t be spreading lies.”
“Then how come you called him a Skunk Bird?”
“Drover, that was your invention, not mine. You were washing dishes…were you washing dishes?”
“I’ve never washed a dish in my whole life.”
“Then where did the dishwater come from?”
“I guess you dreamed it ‘cause you were asleep. And you called me Roy too.”
I stuck my nose in his face. “Listen up, soldier. I’m